


Ghost Stories

by MonsterTesk



Series: Doornails and Daisies [1]
Category: Justified
Genre: Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 23:59:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonsterTesk/pseuds/MonsterTesk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They will fade and he will move on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost Stories

Raylan’s skin shows truths covered by his clothes. They brush against them in a way that screams in whispers of sharp teeth that gentled him not twenty four hours ago.

Art talks using words like “inevitable,” and phrases like “for the best, in the long run. Raylan hears him but he doesn’t listen, too busy trying to memorize the feel of Boyd’s soft words carving into his flesh, his fingers clawing Raylan’s soul back together, the way his teeth seemed to gut the air and make even the most virtuous purge their lies and dark thoughts onto the bed sheet.

He has to do it now. He has to do it before the bruises heal and the spit dries. Before the scent of him and them together fades from his skin.

He has to memorize all of this before Boyd’s body cools under the earth, finally and immortally resting in the holler neither of them could ever stay away from.

There’s probably a metaphor in there that Boyd could tell him about, proselytize on destiny and coins or magnetic fates.

Could have.

“Raylan.”

Raylan focuses, eyes on Art, eyes on Boyd, on the photo on the desk.

A chalk face with ink hair and chartreuse eyes peeled like day old onions do not look at Raylan with the intensity and understanding he knows.

“Go home. Get some sleep. Maybe don’t come back for a few days.”

Raylan nods, picks up his hat, and leaves.

Getting to bed is a good idea.

He can’t memorize the last bed Boyd Crowder slept in if he can’t see it. He stands, pressing fingers into his hip over the last bite that Boyd will ever make just to feel it twinge and throb like Boyd was there now, pressing truths into Raylan’s skin so that he couldn’t deny it, deny him.

He has to remember how that feels. Raylan has to remember how Boyd looked crawling over Raylan and whispering things that Raylan had just recently stopped fighting. He has to remember because that’s all he has. That and Boyd’s manuscript; his tale of two miner boys, mud slides, explosives, and a cowboy who always left broken hearts and dead bodies behind.

Now he’ll never get to know what Boyd titled it. He was supposed to meet with a publisher in Detroit tomorrow. He was supposed to call Raylan when he got there tonight. Maybe Raylan can go take the manuscript for Boyd. Maybe they’ll let him call it “Fire in the Hole.”

Maybe Raylan’s skin doesn’t have to be the only thing that holds bruises of truth below its covers. 


End file.
